BattleTech was intense; a 5-hour session which saw Rich, Martin and Pat trying to take down the “Fire” Lance of the Fox’s Teeth, run by Sarah, Randy and me. They had a fairly successful first half of the battle, being able to cripple my Grasshopper and cause it to retreat, as well as inflicting a lot of damage on Randy’s Atlas, but the end, when it came, came quickly, with the short-range fighting being especially devastating on their overheating mechs. The session actually turned a nice little profit for our team, perhaps 300 WP after repair costs.

After dinner, we had a really good game of Age of Empires III: the Age of Discovery. Randy and Sarah did the best, with Randy pipping Sarah by only one point! This was pretty exceptional for Sarah, given it was her first game. Rich the “Pirate King” also played really well, amassing a great deal of money from trading and privateering, as well as getting a lot of points from discoveries. Rich just scored poorly in the New World, which is where I made most of my points – although Randy was dominant there. Pat and Randy went soldier-happy. I had an unfocused game, which showed in the final scores: Randy 75, Sarah 74, Rich 62, Merric 62, Pat 53.

Then it was time for Rich and Randy to share a win in Cosmic Encounter. We tried our hardest to stop them, but Rich played exceptionally well – playing a Morph card to match Randy’s Negotiate and make a deal to share victory. He was really the Chosen in this game. Randy was the Void, and only managed to eliminate a handful of ships. Pat hasn’t worked out this game yet, but his “Citadel” power was scary.

We finished the evening with a game of In the Year of the Dragon, a very good Eurogame. It was another tough game, with Sarah leading most of the game. Randy was tired, and made a couple of mistakes that ended up costing him victory – I was victor by 2 points, 104 to 102, with Sarah and Rich coming up behind. Sarah just couldn’t get points in the final scoring, although she’d scored a lot of points during the game. We all need to play the game more to get used to it, though. 

All in all, we had a great time. Rich was playing really well; it’s great to have Sarah with us; Pat managed to show us how to get Mechs to 28 heat, and Randy… well, beating him in ItYotD was a nice feeling!  (Revenge for Thursday’s games!)